Photos from MHG win

Michael Collins 4, Mu Gung Hwa 3 - Doms Adios

The rampant Collins continues its steady march towards a strong finísh to the season.

This game was always a potential banana skin especially given what happened in la primera vuelta. MGH are tidy enough and well organized especially when pushing forward to catch the forwards offside.

Like any team believing it has the God given right to the 3 points on offer, MC played the first half in a very relaxed fashion. There were an awful lot of offsides due mainly to the forwards – Dom and Glendons lack of checking runs. Supply from the wings was scant ,due mainly to the absence of the Road Runner Luis on the wing.

Sometimes it takes a team a while to find its feet in a game and this is how it looked on Saturday. A good carriage of play resulted in the impressive Tim wrapping his boot round the ball and sending it into the top corner (artistic licence here ;-) No matter, you make your own luck. The King of deflections Deco would have been proud of it.

MGH wasted little time in getting back on terms. Again another deflected shot sent the keeper the wrong way. Even Stevens at the break. One point of interest in the first half was the imperious Mike “the turtle” Roberts heading everything in the air. After about 48 years of playing football he has worked out it doesn’t hurt to head the ball. Well done Mike !

The break allowed big Rich to show his tactical nous by pulling the strings. Rich fell to the bench and pushed Ian up front, Kris to midfield and Dom to centre half. The gaffers changes were quickly justified after a flurry of very good goals. Firstly Zugi reckons he headed Dom millimetre perfect free kick into net. Good goal Zugi. Kris followed up a great ball by Andre by sticking it into the back of the onion bag. Finally after not a few chances Glendon lobbed the keeper or something and his team mates then decided to leave an indentation of him on the pitch to mark both the pitch and the occasion.

Ky came on to replace someone and also give Richs ear a bit of respite.

Then the Collins went to sleep. Dom was pushing to far forward and left Tom who was having a great game and Mike to take care of the Korean forwards. Mike decided his heading career was finished and the Korean snuck a few scrappy goals to give Rich a nervous last few minutes.

This meant 7 points from the last 3 games so there is some momentum finally. A good team performance and plenty of reason for optimism. Selection will be difficult for Rich next time as the midfield performed very well.

Man of the match went to Dom – who recognised this as a farewell gift and says cheers for all the games and good times. Hope to see you all in Valencia.

For me it was a great way to finish a BIFL career. This current MC team is a great bunch of lads who enjoy playing together and also enjoy their social time together. Long may it continue !

vs independent 2-2 match report supplied by Ian

So Michael Collins on an almost unprecedented run of one game winning streak and Independent consistently playing football, this was always going to be a tightly contested contest.
Collins stalwarts Kyle and Lluis were of gallivanting in foreign lands, but we managed to rope in enough players to warm two blue plastic chairs near the white line on the side of the big green thing.
Our opponents fielded Leroy, a bloke who played for us in a seven aside tournament at the start of the season. We were impressed, the feeling wasn´t mutual and he decided to fight for independence.
The game got off to what can only be described as a start with Tom playing some strong african style football and not soon afterwards Magok or however you spell his name played an incisive upfield ball which confused their two centre backs on the bounce, allowing Glendon to sneak in and head the ball over the on-rushing keeper and into the big squarish white thing at the end of the pitch. 1-0.
We sort of sat back on our laurels for a while, Ian missing a good opportunity lobbing the keeper. He did manage to lob the keeper but also the crossbar too.
Our opposition seemed to be making more chances than us and their pressure paid off before the break to equalise in some way or another.
Tim was having a good game in midfield, breaking up their play and creating good openings for us and we felt we were in with a chance. Alas early in the second half their child-like right winger smashed the ball towards the top corner after some tricky approach play to score a peach. Bastard.
We had forty odd minutes to get back into the game and after Fritz moved to our right wing we had a little more penetration due to his usual strong and energetic performances. We pushed our luck in defence, Independent guilty of wasting some good chances after slipping the markers but thanks to some robust play from Dom and Rich we managed to block out the best they had to offer. Leroy (their best player) had moved up to central midfield and posed much more of a threat than the first half but this weakened their back line. Strong running from midfield´s Tim, Antti and Zuhir the ball made it´s way to the right to a speeding Glendon who put in a perfect cross for Ian to head in.
With the clock running down Dom moved up into attack, Ian took to centre midfield and Tom moved back to centre back. In the final minutes a few insults were traded. Fritz impressing us all by calling someone´s mother a whore in Italian, Tom berating a crying dandy and Dom scuffling with the dutch nemesis Leroy, the referee decided to call a halt on proceedings and share out the points.
Not a bad result. it could have gone either way so onwards and acrosswards for the mighty Collins, next we´ll be playing the awful Koreans, let´s see how much of our tattered reputation we can rake back from them. Victory or death!!!

Men of the match Ian and Tim